WEBINAR
After Early Decision: How One Enrollment Leader Recovered When the Numbers Were Down
One leader’s approach to making hard calls late in the cycle — and what it took to turn the numbers around
Wednesday June 10 | 1:00 PM Eastern
Every enrollment leader knows the feeling. Early decision wraps up, the numbers come in short, and the application window is closed. There’s no time to rebuild volume. What you have in the funnel is what you’re working with — and the pressure to recover is immediate.
This conversation is about what you do next.
Join us for a candid case study featuring Forrest Stuart, Vice President for Enrollment Management at Lafayette College. When Forrest brought Human Capital Education into the cycle, it was October. First insights arrived in December. Early decision had underperformed. And the path forward required making hard decisions quickly — between two imperfect options — and committing to one without looking back.
The result: regular decision yield up nearly three percentage points, 774 students enrolled against a target of 735, wait list pulls down from 171 to 14, and $2.5 million more in net tuition revenue than the prior year.
This is not a story about ideal conditions. It’s a story about clarity under pressure — and what happens when a leader stops hedging and commits to a path.
What you’ll hear:
- How Lafayette assessed the situation honestly when early decision came in short — and what they did differently in regular decision as a result
- How external data gave the enrollment team the confidence to make hard internal decisions quickly — and bring leadership along with them
- How the choice between two imperfect options became the decision that unlocked everything else
- What it means to win this cycle while planting seeds for the next one — and why this year’s results won’t repeat themselves the same way without that longer-term thinking
- What an enrollment leader should understand before bringing in an external partner — and what to expect when the work starts late
Hosted by:
Miranda Benson, Vice President of University Partnerships, Human Capital Education
Forrest Stuart, Vice President for Enrollment Management, Lafayette College
Brian Christensen, Managing Director, Human Capital Education
