Rethinking KPIs in the Recruitment Pipeline

What Gets Measured Gets Done

Ask most enrollment leaders what they’re tracking, and you’ll get a familiar list: inquiries, applications, admits, visits and deposits. Add a few conversion rates, geographic and demographic drilldowns, and comparisons to the previous two cycles, and voila: you have a dashboard..

But if the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that this year is not like last year, and what you were tracking then might not give you a full sense of where you’re actually headed now.

Students are behaving differently. Timelines are shifting. Channels are multiplying. And the external pressures on higher education are more significant than at any other point in this century (and that includes some significant historical events that I needn’t itemize here).

It’s time for a recalibration.

You’ve likely heard the maxim, “What gets measured gets done.”

The natural corollary is that what gets measured well drives better outcomes.

(Author’s note: I share all of this without knowing what you, dear reader, may in fact be tracking. So if everything on here makes you say, “One step ahead of you, Ken,” then well done. On the other hand, if something makes you go, “Hmm” … well, you’re welcome not only for the idea, but also for launching an early ’90s C+C Music Factory ear worm.) 

Pipeline Velocity

This two-way measurement tracks the pace at which students move from one stage to the next (e.g., first inquiry to application, app submission to completion, FAFSA submission to completion, deposit to first onboarding step) and the pace at which your institution responds to student actions (e.g., inquiry to first counselor response, admission offer to financial aid offer, deposit to celebration).

Why it matters:

• It might reveal friction points where students stall, hesitate or fall out of your funnel.
• It might expose operational lags on your institution’s side that can cost you momentum or erode trust.
• It can surface segment-specific differences that deserve attention, and possibly an intervention.

Yes Rate

This metric tracks the percentage of your total student decisions after admission that are “yesses”—calculated by dividing affirmative responses (e.g., admit/matric, deposit pending) by total decisions (deposits and deposit pending, declines, admit/matric/decline, withdrawals, etc.)

Why it matters:

• Enrollment confirmations only tell part of the story. How does this year’s Yes Rate compare to previous cycles? How has it been trending over the past 7, 14 or 30 days? Are you ahead or behind … and why? 
• The rate provides a fuller picture of negative response velocity: are more students actively declining than in previous years? If so, what changed (e.g., pricing, aid, communication, competition)?
• It can help you assess the health of your remaining active admits. Are they still engaging or are they ghosting?
• Pro tip: a rigorous, dynamic engagement score for admitted students can help you discern whether your non-responders are still with you.

Melt Risk Index

The Melt Risk Index is an excellent way to assess how sticky your enrollment confirmations are, based on behavioral signals, engagement patterns and milestone completion. It might include indicators such as missed onboarding steps (e.g., orientation sign-up, housing selection) or portal inactivity (all the more reason to have a robust applicant experience portal that stays relevant after the point of deposit).

Why it matters:

• It helps you prioritize outreach by focusing staff energy on students who appear to be disengaging … before they disappear completely.
• It gives segment-specific melt behavior: are there populations that are disproportionately missing milestones? Why?
• Like Pipeline Velocity, it can highlight information or assurance gaps that undermine your onboarding process.
• Pro tip: If your institution has a clear Deposit to Day One strategy—one where everybody knows who’s responsible for keeping deposited students on track toward Day One at your institution—you’re already ahead of the game. If not, the Melt Risk Index can be a good way to establish the need for an effective Deposit to Day One strategy.

Cost of Waste

This KPI surfaces what many enrollment leaders feel, but fewer quantify: the cost of funnel inefficiency. It reflects the institutional resources—time, money, staff energy—spent on students who were never likely to convert to applicants, much less to enrolled students. Think of it as the byproduct of inflated inquiry pools, misaligned name licensing strategies and search campaigns optimized for volume over value.

Inputs might include your cost per inquiry, cost per application or yield rates from various sources. Of course, no source performs in a vacuum; each one is affected by how (and whether) you engage students farther downstream. But the power of this KPI is in exposing how much of your funnel is made up of students who were never serious prospects but still consumed your team’s time and budget.

Why it matters:

• It helps you make the case for quality over quantity so you can confidently say “no” to underperforming investments, freeing up resources for efforts that generate real movement.
• It reframes conversations with internal stakeholders—and, more importantly, marketing partners—around efficiency, not just activity.

Measuring is easy.

Measuring wisely is harder, but it’s the key to moving from merely collecting information to acting decisively on intelligence.

If you would like help building reports to track these KPIs in your Slate database, your friends here at RHB are the finest in all the land at doing so. Let’s talk.