(266) Recruiting for Graduate Programs: One Size Does Not Fit All

Objective : Higher education struggles to maintain pre-pandemic student enrollment, so graduate program recruitment is a key issue for graduate and professional campuses with unique prospective student populations. Typical recruitment efforts use a variety of digital advertising strategies, including advertising, online communities, e-mail lists, and social and professional networking platforms to supplement traditional recruitment activities like student events and open houses. The UMSOP Graduate Studies in Medical Cannabis Program attracts students from varied professional backgrounds interested in the cannabis industry with a specific focus on under-represented populations. This poster contrasts recruitment strategies for cannabis with those utilized for the PharmD program.

Methods: A recruitment strategy was created focusing on return on investment (ROI) by measuring prospective student contact. Customized QR-codes were used to measure analytics for each recruitment effort to evaluate the cost-benefit compared with current recruiting efforts for the PharmD program.

Results: While both programs used targeted online advertising, maintaining an active social media presence, attending conferences, and hosting open houses, cannabis recruitment efforts included mailing personalized letters and FAQ sheets to cannabis dispensaries, advertising on Reddit, speaking at local rotary clubs, and attending panel discussions at local colleges and HBCUs. QR codes and customized application questions asking “how they heard” about the program outperformed traditional recruitment efforts, resulting in more website traffic, attendance at open houses, and application conversion. - demonstrating that recruiting efforts are not a one-size-fits-all but should be tailored to the individual program (and student).

Conclusions: Effective recruitment is not one-size-fits-all. Tailored approaches that integrate ROI evaluation provide opportunities to stretch marketing budgets, allowing programs to reach out to under-represented populations that have not been previously targeted.