Turning Intent into Action: Rethinking the Admitted Student Portal

Cathy Donovan [00:00:00]

Admitted student portals are more than a to-do list. They’re a make-or-break moment for enrollment. We’re in summer melt season, and your institution’s portal is key in keeping admitted students engaged and on the path to that first day as an enrolled student.

In this episode of Innovating Enrollment Success we talk with an account manager and a developer to explore what makes a student portal actually work and how to start making improvements right away.

I’m Cathy Donovan, agency marketing director at Paskill, where we help institutions thrive and help students find where they belong through meaningful and strategic enrollment marketing.

Angela Wenner brings over 25 years of agency experience with a focus on higher education marketing. She’s consistently recognized for her client-first approach and was recently awarded a grant to safeguard client data assets in innovative ways. With a degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Angela is known for connecting big-picture campaigns with the systems and assets needed to deliver quality, engagement, and quality leads.

Suri Sahay is an interactive developer who brings digital experiences to life for a wide range of higher education clients. A proud Penn State graduate, where she majored in Computer Science, Suri recently won the agency’s Behind the Scenes Award, an honor voted on by her peers in recognition for her dependable work that goes above and beyond. With a background in instruction, including teaching at Mathnasium, Suri brings a collaborative spirit to every project, making her technical expertise accessible to both colleagues and clients.

Welcome, Angela and Suri.

Angela Wenner: Hi Cathy.

Cathy Donovan: Well, let’s get started. So as many as 40% of college-intending students don’t enroll by fall. With melt rates especially high among low-income and first-gen students, up to 44% in some cases. And with over 70% of students reporting they need more support after acceptance, institutions have a clear opportunity to improve yield through better post-admission engagement.

So, Angela, let’s get started by learning from you. What’s the purpose of an admitted student portal in 2025?

Angela Wenner: Well, the accepted student portal, or admitted student portal is key for keeping that prospective student engaged with the institution. Keeping them engaged with the admissions team, keeping them engaged with what life might be like on that campus. And it provides them with the tools and information they need to continue their process of enrollment as they continue to explore colleges and take that journey of college search.

An effective student portal will connect that student with the institution in ways that allow them to really understand whether they’re a good fit for that school.

Cathy Donovan: Makes sense. So how about Suri, what tech is needed to support that kind of engagement that Angela is talking about?

Suri Sahay: So there are a few key items that come to my mind when it comes to tech needed. The first thing that the portal needs to be a responsive design. As you know, many students access this portal through their phones, so we need to ensure that the portal loads correctly for both mobile and desktop. Second, the portal needs to use lightweight tech so that it loads in a timely manner. Chances are that students will most likely click out of the portal if it is not loading fast enough.

And, obviously the portal needs to be secure as well. We don’t want like student addresses leaking onto other portals for other students. We also need to make sure that it’s accessible. So for example, the text should have enough contrast with the background and images that we use on the portal should have alt text because there are students that use screen readers. So by having the alt text on images, they know the context of an image. And also we need to make sure that the software or the CRM that the portal is on allows for, uh, dynamic data.

Cathy Donvan: So it’s a big challenge because it sounds like the engagement key is a lot, you know, it has to hit on all those levels and then that tech support’s got to back it up to make it all seamless. So, what are the features that are essential for that portal to drive enrollment decisions? Angela, what do you think? What are the key ingredients to an effective portal?

Angela Wenner: I think first the portal needs to be tailored and personalized to that specific prospective student. It needs to recognize them as in terms of the potential major that they’re interested in, the stage that they’re at, in their enrollment decision, and just feel like it was, designed and meant for them personally.

I would say it also needs to provide a very quick way to reference the process of enrollment. Whether there is a deposit that’s due and what date that deposit is due on. Are there some events happening on campus such as open house or visit days that they need to know about? And as well, we think it’s very important for student aid information to be available and displayed on that portal specific to that student. So that they can understand where they are in the process and what they need to do to finish.

Suri Sahay: Yeah, I agree with that. So besides financial aid, the next thing that students look for generally is the college culture. By having that dynamic data on the portal, we can show content based on the interest that they might have indicated in their application.

So for example, different clubs and sports, if they have those indicated, we can show dynamic data based on that. Or for example, if a student is an international student, we might show them resources that might help them adapt to the U.S. culture or show events happening around campus that might pertain to their culture.

Cathy Donovan: That’s a good point, because I think, especially right now, international students might want to have all that information really handy so they feel safe and secure in moving forward with that institution. How about institutions, where are they missing the mark? Because it sounds like these are really key ingredients for that student to move from admitted into enrolled. But based on your experience, Angela, where are institutions not delivering everywhere they could?

Angela Wenner: Well, I think there’s certainly institutions that aren’t making full use of the portal capabilities that they have. They don’t have the time or the technical expertise to build that portal out in its most robust manner, so they’re not fully utilizing it in the way that it’s intended. And that can be a challenge for some colleges. I would say they also need to recognize that it is important to speak to that student from their student-focused point of view.

It’s not about talking at them, it’s about helping them along the way, leading them along their journey toward enrollment. And I would say the other thing that would be a disconnect, for some of the portals we’ve seen is that it just doesn’t feel exactly the same or it doesn’t feel right when compared to the primary website. So using this brand consistency, using the voice consistency that is found on the primary website should be also carried through on the portal so that it feels like you’re at the right place and not a separate institution.

Cathy Donovan: That makes sense. How about you, Suri? What are those tech concerns where institutions might be missing the mark?

Suri Sahay: Like I mentioned before, and kind of extending off of what Angela said, often these portals just show a static checklist or some generic information that they show to every single student. So and they might have outdated unresponsive design and information that is buried in text so the students might feel frustrated while navigating these portals.

It is important that the information is clear and responsive so that the students don’t feel frustrated. Also, I have noticed that a lot of these portals don’t have much interaction to them. So we could add peer-to-peer engagement by adding features like student forums or group chats or Q&A so that the students feel a little bit more involved rather than just feel like they’re reading text.

Cathy Donovan: Because they definitely have their options. So if they made it this far with your institution and they’re admitted and then they feel like, “Hey, where’s my community?”

Suri Sahay: Yeah.

Cathy Donovan: If they’re not feeling it there, they could definitely be part of that melt trend. What does some collaboration between strategy and development look like? I know enrollment marketers might want the sun, moon, and stars to keep these students engaged and content, but that might be difficult for developers to support, to make sure it’s doing all the things already said to load and to be accessible. Angela, could you talk a little bit about that connection between strategy and development?

Angela Wenner: Sure, I mean, certainly the portal is being owned and maintained by that admissions or enrollment team, and they’ve got activities going on outside of the portal. You want to make sure that there’s a cohesiveness in terms of the timing and delivery of various communication pieces.

If something is being emailed out to that student, we certainly want to have recognition of that within the portal and make those communications consistent across various platforms that the enrollment team is using. I would say as well, I think that a collaborative approach is very important, getting the team that’s going to own and manage the portal to really understand its capabilities.

I would say working sessions with them, training sessions that we can provide and really kind of get down in the weeds with that enrollment team so that they can understand the ins and outs and maybe even the limitations of the portal so that they’re not getting frustrated as they maintain it beyond that first build. It needs to be a living, breathing tool just like a website is. So having an enrollment team that’s feeling comfortable with the portal and using it to the best of its ability is really important.

Cathy Donovan: Anything to add there, Suri?

Suri Sahay: Yeah, I completely agree. I like when Angela said working sessions with the institution. I like the working sessions because it allows for real time testing so that we know that the information that we display on the portal is accurate for that particular student.

Cathy Donovan: That makes sense.

Angela Wenner: Yes, we would set up and I recall a working session that we had not too long ago where we really kind of explored all the various student stages that could potentially be applied to any given admitted student. Where are they in their particular journey? And then tailoring that content to them is nice to say and easy to say, but it’s a lot harder to pull off.

So you’ve got the conditional logic that goes into making that content tailored to that user is a really tricky process. Um, and I was able to work through that with Suri and our client team on that build and that conditional logic, we realized that there’s an awful lot of variables and scenarios that can be modeled in your testing phase. And then you take on those personas and you view what that version of the portal looks like to that student and you test and iterate from there.

Cathy Donovan: Very cool. So it sounds like you did a lot of innovating, but curious what innovation or idea you’re excited about in the future of portals? What’s next?

Angela Wenner: Well, we really like to keep clients thinking about community-driven elements. Where can we get this prospective student engaged with other folks from campus, whether they be existing students, alumni, or members of faculty. We want to be able to make sure those connections can happen.

We’ve also looked at gamification where, you know, you put a small quiz or a game into the portal, and that allows us, first of all, to learn more about that student by their responses, but also tailor the content for their interests. How are they behaving on the portal?

Once we’ve collected a lot of data and had some users kind of go through the process over the course of an enrollment cycle, we can then see where students are abandoning the portal, where they’re kind of skipping over information or missing important information, and then we can then tailor the portal to fit those sorts of situations.

Cathy Donovan: How about you, Suri? Anything you’re looking forward to in terms of innovating future portals?

Suri Sahay: Yeah, so we know that students, especially Gen Z students, they want quick and concise answers. So one way we can do this is by adding an AI-powered chatbot to portals. That way the students, instead of digging for information they can just ask a quick question to the chatbot and they’ll get their response like in five seconds.

Another advantage to this is it’s available 24-7, so they don’t necessarily have to reach out to a real person and wait a couple of hours for them to respond. So that would be a nice feature to add to portals.

Cathy Donovan: Yes, as a mother of two teenage daughters, I know they do not like to wait. Not at all. The faster the better, for sure. So before we close, just curious from both of you one thing enrollment leaders should prioritize in their portal planning. Any thoughts on what folks could do right now or in the long term? Angela?

Angela Wenner: I would say certainly work through the assets that you have, whether those be the latest and greatest TikTok videos or clips or photography that you have available, that shows that student experience. Start co-curating that and collecting it for use in the portal. I would say also get all of the various departments of the college in line in terms of their participation with the content of the portal.

You don’t want to have a portal that’s incomplete, so if the financial aid team is not necessarily connecting to the needs of the enrollment team, we need to start building those bridges across the campus so that, for example, financial aid information is easily and readily available through the portal.

Simple things like that will make a huge difference in terms of the usability and engagement that we’re able to deliver in a portal. Another thing to be really mindful of is the timing of the launch of your portal. You definitely want this portal up and running in the fall so that those admitted students are able to log in as soon as they receive their acceptance letter and start to learn more and find out about the college. Don’t put it off. Make sure you get it ready for those new visitors by fall.

Cathy Donovan: Very good. Suri, how about you? What do you think that one thing enrollment leader should prioritize in their portal planning?

Suri Sahay: Think about the user journey throughout the portal. So what do you want the users to see when they first log in? What is the most important information? What is secondary to that? Just think about where you want the user to end up and how we can help them make that decision to accept the offer.

Cathy Donovan: Fantastic. Well, thank you Angela and Suri. So we know admitted student portals are clearly much more than a digital checklist. They’re a crucial part of the enrollment journey. And as we head into summer melt, know how your portal engages. Students can make all the difference in turning intent into action.

If you’d like to learn more about Angela or Suri, connect with them on social or check out our show notes. If this episode sparked ideas for your team, share it and subscribe for more conversations on Innovating Enrollment Success. And if your admitted student portal needs a fresh assessment or a full rehab, the team at Paskill is here to help.