When enrollment falls short, the instinct is immediate and understandable: something must be wrong in the Admission office. Maybe it’s time for fresh leadership. Maybe a new face will change the trajectory.
Occasionally, that’s true. But more often, it isn’t. And replacing enrollment leadership without addressing the underlying institutional conditions is typically expensive and counter productive. Searches take time…talented staff leave…systems fall apart…relationships are lost. That’s likely at least a two year loss of momentum. What institution can afford that?
In my experience, the institutions that struggle most with enrollment tend to share a common characteristic—not a weak VP, but a structural disconnect between enrollment and the rest of the institution. When academic programs have not maintained market relevance, when campus morale signals student experience gaps, when student-facing facilities are worn and dull, when pricing strategy doesn’t reflect market reality—no VP, however talented, can recruit their way out of those conditions.
Enrollment is downstream of nearly every major institutional decision. Program portfolio, pricing, residential experience, advising quality, career outcomes, faculty engagement—all of it shapes what the Admission office has to work with. When those upstream conditions are strong, good enrollment professionals thrive. When they’re weak, even exceptional ones struggle. Here’s the truth – great Admission offices don’t make great colleges…great colleges make great Admission offices.
Before concluding that enrollment leadership is the problem, it’s worth asking a different set of questions. Remember back to the classic 4 P’s of strategic planning – Program, Place, Price, and Promotion. Institutions tend to want to “tell their story better” (i.e. Promotion) and not do the very hard work of assessing the other P’s upon which Promotion is built. Critically, it is also important to understand what competitors are doing across their P’s as well.
These are hard questions. They require honest assessment and good data across the cabinet and the faculty, not just one area responsible for the numbers but not what drives the numbers. But they’re the right questions—because they lead to strategies that can actually change outcomes.
None of this is to say that enrollment leadership doesn’t matter. It does—enormously. The right leadership brings market intelligence, operational discipline, strategic financial aid management, and the credibility to lead cross-functional collaboration. Poor fit or weak execution in that role is a real problem. But the larger diagnostic question isn’t simply “Is this the right person?” It’s “Are we providing the institutional conditions in which the VPEM can succeed?”
The institutions navigating enrollment challenges most effectively have presidents and cabinets that own enrollment strategy together. They bring honest data to the table. They resist wishful thinking. They ask what they can improve about programs, campus, pricing, and student experience—not just who they can hire. They treat their VP for Enrollment as a strategic partner, not a problem-solver of last resort.
If enrollment is struggling at your institution, the leadership question is worth asking. A good enrollment leader welcomes the questions and should have plenty of answers about the landscape and practices. But ask the institutional questions first. The answers are usually more illuminating—and may be more actionable—than you might expect.
J. Carey Thompson is the founder of CVET Enrollment Strategies, bringing 35+ years of senior enrollment leadership experience across admission, financial aid, career services, communications, athletics, and institutional research. CVET partners with private colleges and universities to develop comprehensive, evidence-based enrollment strategies. Learn more at cvetconsulting.com.