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[resis]

One of our four grad programs received a markedly lower number of applications this year. I'm baffled because this is occurring in the midst of a recession (when students should be choosing grad study over entering a lousy job market) and the hurting program is in a field that is often named by undergrads as a desirable career path.

Last year, before the application deadline, we revised our web site to highlight our best selling points and mailed information to other universities within a 500 mile radius. Also, our department has one of the strongest reputations at our university (e.g., two faculty teaching awards this year, plus higher than normal research productivity), so I think I can safely say that the problem is not that our faculty just suck.

Any suggestions? What strategies have you used to encourage applications to your grad programs?

[systeme_d_]

Make sure your program has a good description and contact info on gradschools.com, princetonreview.com, and those other searchable commercial sites.  This generation does most of its grad school research online.  Talk to people in admin at your university's Graduate School and see if they have a business relationship with or preference for any of these sites. 

If you have not yet done so, post any stats you can think of on your own website.  This generation seems to love reading stats.  Mine your latest grad program review for numbers, and comments.  Be sure to include information about the employability of recent grads (not just placement rates in academia, but also other careers).

Formalize (and keep up!) your connections with undergraduate institutions that have sent you students in the past.  Email them (the chair, or the chief undergraduate advisor) every application season to see if they have students they would like to recommend to your program. 

Get your faculty and current grad students to help expand your list of feeder programs.  Everyone can email their colleagues.  Senior faculty have longstanding relationships with colleagues who teach in good undergrad programs.  Junior faculty have ties to folks in their grad program cohort and to the professors in their undergraduate departments.  Current grad students can communicate with faculty or majors associations in their undergraduate departments.

If you have any budget whatsoever, try to make arrangements to visit these "feeder schools" and meet with majors.  If you have no budget, figure out a way to hold an online info session with undergraduate majors associations from several schools, or to send them all a podcast.  Have your current grad students create a short propaganda video, and podcast that.  Post the podcast on your website.

I'm brimming with ideas.  I have no budget, but I am working on all of the above and more.

[locutus]

Have you asked your students what they think of the website? I know you said it's been revamped, but sometimes people have a bit of an insiders blind spot about these things. It's good to ask an outsider who is close to your target audience what they think. In general I think online info is very important.

What kind of program is this? Masters? PhD? Are the students applying just to the program or do they need to specify a professor?

[academic_cog]

Could it have something to do with the credit crunch and students' knowledge or assumption that it's impossible to take out loans these days? What types of funding do you highlight on your web site?

I read somewhere that the typical recession return-to-school upturn won't happen this time because people can't scrape up the cash for tuition now...

[kaysixteen]

Sorrta out of touch with reality that a grad school administrator should be whining about lower grad student numbers.  Perhaps today's kids have finally wised up to the reality that most grad students will never get a tt academic job, and are thus better able to put the choice to attend grad school in perspective as opposed to the propaganda...