Concurrent Enrollment

Leading the charge in UX research to streamline concurrent student applications and align stakeholders with data-driven solutions! 🎓🌟

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Improved user journeys

Simplified online application process by removing friction, integrating automation and reducing steps.

From 10 steps to 3 steps!

UX research provided insight on new project goals and completely shifted our target audience.

Surprise – it’s not high school students!

Clarify Target Audience

Discovered holes in enrollment UX journeys and built solutions that are easier for our audiences to understand.

Guess what? No one knows what “Concurrent enrollment” means.

user-centered solutions

UX Buy-in

Advocated for UX-first practices to reduce confusion, save money and solidify project goals in the future.

2,000 20-page info booklets were printed before we did research. Oops!

Challenges

Initially, I was tasked with helping the Concurrent Enrollment task force highlight the advantages of CMU enrollment over AP courses. However, leadership was divided on whether to focus on the clunky application, numerous program options, or showcasing course locations.

Audiences:
High school students, counselors, parents.

Business goals:
Gain more concurrently enrolled students, promote free college options, use concurrent enrollment as a recruitment tool. Ease relationships with high school counselors to promote our programs.

“We need them to know that it’s better to take CMU courses instead of AP courses”

— Leadership

“There are 6 different program options depending on interest, program funding and course location.”

— Leadership

Solutions

Joining the project after solutions were proposed proved challenging. Despite multiple discussions between leadership and marketing, printed booklets failed to address our core issues. I pushed for UX research to align solutions with student, parent, and counselor needs. Surprisingly, our findings shifted focus from high school students to counselors. We identified gaps and frustrations in the online application journey, partnering with IT and Slate teams to streamline processes and unify six programs into one umbrella: "Free college options for high school students."

Tools:

Miro • Proven by Users Survey • Qualitative Research & Analysis

We surveyed over 200 concurrently enrolled students to learn more about their thoughts, opinions and experiences enrolling in concurrent programs. Ultimately, we learned students had no clue what program they were enrolled in – and that high school counselors were their main point of contact in getting students interested in concurrent options in the first place.
I collaborated with Academic Affairs’ Director of Process Improvement to bring qualitative insights into our solutions and help generate new project goals based on our data and the existing issues presented. This helped us create a clear project plan and show leadership what areas to focus on moving forward.
Through our research we realized our website did not serve high school students – local high school counselors were most likely to be the first point of contact using the site to guide students and educate them about their options.
Our marketing team eventually moved away from messaging related to AP programs. We determined aggressive messaging would not help move the needle on conversion rates.
I collaborated with the Director of Process Improvement to create user flows showing leadership our existing pain points within our online application and how our findings would eventually improve these processes.