ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan is using the Internet in a new way to connect with prospective students. In partnership with Embark, a company that provides admissions-related online recruiting services to colleges and universities across the country, eight of the University’s schools and colleges offer interactive inquiry forms on the Web.

According to University officials, the new online inquiry system will result in better service for individuals interested in getting information about the University’s academic programs by enabling the various admitting offices to respond quickly to student questions, and save data entry, paper and postage costs.

“We needed a solution that would allow the admissions offices to continue their unique approaches to recruiting prospective applicants while reducing the effort needed to manage the tens of thousands of inquiries we receive each year,” explained Lester Monts, senior vice provost for academic affairs.

“We are pleased to have found a coordinated solution that does not require conformity by the different admissions offices. This solution will help us provide individualized responses to all kinds of inquiries, from the 13-year-old prodigy to the 60-year-old returning student.”

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions; the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; the schools of business, music, law, public health; the College of Engineering transfer admissions office and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies have inquiry forms available for a number of academic programs via the U-M and Embark Web sites.

“This new system allows us to capture better information, since it is entered directly by the student, not translated from handwritten materials or from transcribed telephone inquiries,” said John Gohsman, director of the Student Administration Division in Michigan Administrative Information Services. “Because the information goes immediately into our campus-wide database, we can avoid sending the prospective student duplicate information, even when they are interested in more than one school or college. And last but not least, online forms automate a number of time-consuming clerical tasks.”

Embark, the University’s development partner, provides Web-based products to help universities generate, receive and manage new leads and then use that information during the application process. For U-M, the company produced a Web system that efficiently collects the large volume of inquiries the University receives and transfers data ready for integration with the admissions process.

While the University is preparing to implement Web application forms for Fall 2002 for at least 10 schools and colleges, the first step in the admissions process is for prospective students to visit an inquiry site and indicate interest in specific U-M academic programs, according to University officials.

“The University of Michigan continues to demonstrate its technology leadership by implementing a scalable, Web-based recruiting and admissions system,” said Embark president and CEO Phillip Dunkelberger. “By implementing these systems campus-wide, universities can achieve a significant return on investment while improving services to students.”

The inquiry sites can be accessed via the U-M Web site or the Embark portal. Those URLs are: http://www.umich.edu/UM-Prospective.html and http://www.embark.com

For more information, contact John Gohsman at (734) 647-7442, jgohsman@umich.edu, or Katie Madden at Embark, (415) 615-1652, kmadden@embark.com.

EmbarkLester MontsOffice of Undergraduate Admissionshttp://www.umich.edu/UM-Prospective.htmljgohsman@umich.edu