UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

UT Tyler Graduate Admissions Staff Members Win National Qualtrics Survey Competition

Follow @UTTylerTweet

March 4, 2015

Media Contact:  Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer–Strategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)

March 4, 2015

Two UT Tyler graduate admissions staff members were recognized for their innovative ideas in a national survey competition, Dr. Alecia Wolf, assistant dean for The Graduate School and graduate admissions director, announced.

Graduate admissions recruiter Jessica Miller and graduate admissions representative Andrea Grzybowski, both UT Tyler alumnae, won a prize in the amount of $3,000 in the 2015 Qualtrics SurveyMod Competition for the “Most Proven” survey submission.

The contest was designed to reward academics who build innovative use cases called ‘SurveyMods’ using Qualtrics survey software.

Since the survey launched in October 2014, more than 4,500 prospective students have used the tool in their graduate school decision-making process, making it the survey with the highest number of valid responses in the competition, thus winning the category.

“We knew if we could create an automated survey where the student provides their profile, and we compare it against the university requirements, we could enhance our customer service and expedite the inquiry response process,” Grzybowski said.

Miller and Grzybowski used information they learned in a Qualtrics workshop to design the Profile Evaluator. The survey allows prospective students to select their desired program and enter their GPA, GRE, GMAT and language test scores. It instantly generates a response based on the prospective student’s information. Depending on the input, a prospective student will receive one of three responses. Once a student has used the Profile Evaluator, their contact information is captured and imported into the customer relations management software system, which allows them to receive recruiting emails from UT Tyler graduate admissions.

“The initial survey wasn’t too complicated to create, but we decided it would be even more useful if we could tailor it to each individual program, which was much more labor intensive. It took about a week to create and test the logic for each program,” Miller said.

The survey launch was in conjunction with a redesign of the graduate prospect inquiry form.

“With this change, graduate admissions has seen a 347 percent increase in prospect inquiries from the survey and inquiry forms over this time last year – from 1,311 to 5,865,” said Wolf, who encouraged her staff members to enter their survey into the competition. “The typical prospective graduate student prefers to research schools online, and these tools offer them a quick and easy solution.”

Grzybowski and Miller have served UT Tyler since 2010 and 2011, respectively. They both hold master of science degrees from the university.