University Business - May 2010 - (Page 6)

EDITOR’S NOTE There Has To Be a Better Way T he sTory you are abouT To read is true. only the names (of the schools) have been changed to protect the innocent. My son Nick will graduate high school in June and the early months of this year have been spent applying for aid, completing applications, sending in fees, and all the other fun stuff that goes with applying to college. in Nick’s case, he applied to four schools, which i’ll call Colleges a, b, C, and d. The scenario was the same for each: Fill school that we hadn’t heard from yet. We called the admission out the forms, write an essay, have the College board forward office there, too, just to be sure. This time we heard that all the his saT scores, and so on. Nothing unusual. so, we were pleas- pieces were in place. The forms had found each other and the antly surprised when he received acceptance letters from Col- application was being reviewed. Why had one school out of four not leges a and b on the same day in early been able to match the applications? March. Now if only College C, his top A more efficient system Clearly College C has a different way of choice school, would do the same, we’d doing things, and i’m certainly not placall be happy. would have alerted the Nick’s own mistake caused the but, in the first week of april a letter staff to the discrepancy. ing blame.but, other than the first name, problem. arrived from College C, informing Nick the rest of the information matched. a that his application was inactive because he had failed to complete it. They had not received his saT more efficient system would have alerted the admissions staff to scores, even though we had confirmation that the scores had the discrepancy, saving time and some anxiety. Not so coincidentally, efficiency has been on our minds a lot been sent in February. i called College C’s admission office to see what the problem lately. in this issue we reveal the first honorees in our ongoing was. a helpful woman who answered the phone confirmed that Models of efficiency program. These campus departments have the saT scores weren’t with the application, but offered to look found a way to use technology and business processes to save for them with some additional information. she soon found the resources and improve service. read their stories beginning on page 32. We were thrilled with the early response to the program scores, which had in fact been received back in February. The problem? Nick filled out his applications under the name and, even as this issue goes to press, our judges are beginning to Nicholas, but his scores were sent out under Nick. he rarely review the entries for the second round. Learn more about the goes by his full name and likely didn’t give it a second thought. program—and enter your own department—at our website. all the other identifiers matched, but because the first name was slightly different, the two pieces never found each other. Mystery solved, the woman added his scores to the application and said it would be reconsidered, pending seat availability. Write to Tim Goral at tgoral@universitybusiness.com. This made me wonder about College d, another preferred Special Section: See how higher education is changing for the better. University Business Award recipients announced! 6 | May 2010 Sponsored by Learn more. See pages 32-40. universitybusiness.com 4/20/10 10:12:45 AM MOE 8thMayFINAL.indd 1 http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2010

University Business - May 2010
Contents
Editor’s Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Models of Efficiency
Fast, Friendly Fix-its
Go With the Flow: Campus Traffic and Parking Solutions
What’s New
Community Colleges
End Note

University Business - May 2010