Every year, colleges lose admitted students before classes even begin. One university has taken a look in the mirror to understand what’s driving students away from enrolling.
“Students do not always melt because they changed their mind about the institution,” says Adwoa Arhin, a business analyst at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “What I saw in our work is that communication gaps can quietly create enrollment risk.”
Closing those gaps required the university to overhaul both student outreach and administrative workflows, making enrollment steps easier to navigate while giving staff a clearer view of where students were stalling.
Strengthening student outreach
Securing deposits, housing and financial aid can create an enrollment barrier to any admitted student. The threat is greater for international learners, who must provide additional documentation while navigating stricter immigration requirements under the Trump administration.
As institutions compete for a smaller pool of international students, timely university communication has become critical. A delayed message, unclear instructions or missed follow-up can jeopardize a student’s enrollment, pushing them toward another institution, Arhin says.
Previously at Greensboro, a university email to admitted international students would be packed with multiple to-do items. They could be asked to submit their intent to enroll, provide financial documentation, and prepare for lengthy I-20 and visa requirements, along with other time-sensitive actions.
In some cases, embedded links directed students to the university’s Global Engagement Office homepage rather than the forms they needed, requiring them to seek staff assistance before progressing.
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Moreover, students who did not move through the process in the expected order were sometimes harder for staff to follow up with.
“When students are admitted but remain confused, they can fall through the cracks,” Arhin says. “Students who received no communication from us either became frustrated by the delay or left for other schools.”
Greensboro responded by redesigning the student experience. Enrollment instructions were broken up in sequential order and paired with direct links to required forms and resources.
On the back end, Arhin worked with admissions, recruitment, IT, web developers and vendors to better identify where students were getting stuck and how staff could intervene before someone disengaged.
The university implemented a centralized dashboard that generates weekly reports on application and I-20 progress, streamlining staff communication and visibility.
“It’s now an automated process with built-in analytics,” Arhin says. “Staff or leadership can now see more quickly where the delays start.”
Reducing summer melt
Improvements to student outreach accelerated document processing and helped more students complete critical visa-related requirements on time. What once could take a week or longer can now often be completed within days, Arhin says.
The changes have also contributed to enrollment gains. Undergraduate international enrollment increased by more than 48% in fall 2025. Broader communications improvements have also supported domestic student enrollment.
The broader lesson, Arhin says, is that reducing summer melt requires institutions to look beyond student behavior and examine the systems supporting enrollment.
“Fixing the issue required more than a system update,” she says. “It required reviewing the workflow logic, stakeholder handoffs and operational visibility across the process.”