Enrollment leaders often confide in Angel B. Pérez. Recently, some have told him their jobs are wearing them down, wrecking their health, and wringing the joy out of their lives.
In August, Pérez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), got a call from an enrollment official who said she had just walked into her president’s office and quit. “This president thinks I am the savior who can fix all of the institution’s financial woes,” Pérez recalls her telling him that day, “but I’m not that, and none of us are.”
It’s true: Even the most brilliant enrollment tacticians can’t fix everything that’s broken at a given college any more than they could turn water into wine. Still, institutional leaders tend to demand an annual miracle: more applicants, more revenue, more everything — no matter the circumstances working against such goals. Those who don’t deliver often find themselves out of a job.
Others find that job increasingly untenable. Since the beginning of the pandemic, colleges have seen a surge in enrollment leaders resigning “out of exhaustion, frustration, and disillusionment,” as The Chronicle reported in this in-depth account, which also described how some admissions officials have been second-guessing their pursuit of senior-level positions.
Meanwhile, institutions keep demanding more from their enrollment leaders, Pérez and other insiders say, even as higher education confronts new and intensifying challenges. Those include funding freezes and budget cuts. The end of race-conscious admissions and a sustained backlash against campus diversity initiatives. Smaller pools of traditional college-age students, many with great financial need. New barriers to enrolling international students. Technological innovations changing the way colleges engage with students. Political unrest sweeping college campuses. And what can feel like around-the-clock scrutiny, from the Trump administration, state legislators, boards of trustees, conservative activists, and a skeptical public.
“It’s an existential moment for so many enrollment leaders,” Pérez says. “There’s extraordinary pressure on top of the pressures that the job normally brings. Many are feeling that they just might not hit their goals, and then that means some people on the campus are going to lose their jobs, and resources are not going to flow into the college. And everyone’s looking at them.”
Pérez, who previously held senior-level enrollment positions at two private colleges, describes the hazards of the job in his new book, The Hottest Seat on Campus: A Roadmap for Mastering Leadership in College Admission. It’s a vivid series of snapshots of life inside the high-stakes field, with advice from the author and other current and former leaders who’ve toiled in a realm where the metrics of success or failure are publicly available and widely scrutinized. “The list of people you may anger with enrollment outcomes is endless,” Pérez writes, “and they all have valid reasons for challenging your decisions as an admissions leader.”
Pérez wrote the book out of concern for the well-being of those at the top of the professional ladder, as well as the younger admissions officers who will succeed them. Many early- and mid-career staffers, he has found over the years, don’t see a clear path to leadership positions, or get enough support along the way.
“Most of us stumble into this profession with little training and climb the ranks toward leadership with a ‘sink or swim’ mindset,” writes Pérez, who describes that as a systemic flaw. “Our profession must be more intentional in preparing deans for success — not just for their own health, but also the college’s.”
For anyone who doesn’t happen to work in an admissions or enrollment division, the day-to-day pressures within such offices might seem like someone else’s problem. After all, every department has its own stresses and struggles.
Then again, an admissions operation is singularly important because its work impacts all other parts of the institution. Just about everything a college does hinges on the labor of those who recruit, admit, and enroll students each year, from the senior enrollment official engineering complex marketing campaigns to the brand-new admissions officer visiting five high schools a day in the fall to talk up their institution to prospective applicants, some of whom will become next year’s tuition-paying freshmen.
Because that work is so crucial, the lived experiences of those who oversee it has a way of reverberating on campus. Whether your head of enrollment feels content, empowered, and supported by institutional leaders and colleagues can affect a college’s pursuit of various goals. “My personal satisfaction as an enrollment leader is going to have an impact on the people I serve,” says Heath Einstein, vice provost for enrollment management at Texas Christian University. “If I’m content, I’m more likely to have people who work in my units who are also content, because I’ll be actively thinking about what would make them a happier member of the team. That’s going to translate into better performance, and I’m likely to retain people longer. And we all know what a revolving door this industry has become.”
Turnover has become common among top-level administrators. A 2024 survey of senior enrollment officials by WittKieffer, an executive search firm, identified “a revolving door in leadership at all levels” as a key professional challenge. “There’s a trickle-down effect when you see transition at the top,” says Amy Crutchfield, a senior partner at the firm. “Presidents and provosts are leaving their positions more frequently, and that is creating additional churn and uncertainty for enrollment leaders, who may decide it’s time to look for a new opportunity, knowing that a new president or provost might want to bring in their own leaders.” Typically, they do.
My personal satisfaction as an enrollment leader is going to have an impact on the people I serve.
Many enrollment officials are eyeing the door. Just 38 percent of respondents in WittKieffer’s survey said they were “Happy where I am”; the rest planned to seek a different job, or retire, within three years. Since the pandemic, it’s been a buyer’s market, with more open positions than candidates to fill them, according to Crutchfield, whose firm has conducted more than 170 searches for enrollment leaders over the last five years: “We’ve seen an intensification of those trends, with enrollment positions still among the most competitive to fill,” she says. “We’re seeing a trend of smaller pools and more intense competition for candidates that are highly sought after.”
Recently, the top enrollment official at one of the nation’s most selective private colleges told The Chronicle that a national search for a new admissions dean had produced just six candidates — all highly qualified, but many fewer than expected. At some not-so-selective private colleges and regional public universities, senior-enrollment positions have remained unfilled for many months.
In such an environment, it’s worth asking how colleges can adjust. Some, Crutchfield says, “might need to be more mindful of developing and growing their own talent, so when there are openings, they have someone to elevate into those positions.”
The structural and cultural contradictions within the profession can complicate the cultivation of home-grown talent. Idealism might get you in the door, but it’s not what will get you the big desk.
A desire to expand college access for low-income and underrepresented students draws many people into admissions work. But to thrive in a senior leadership role down the line, one must embrace the pursuit of numerous institutional goals, many of which can work against the aim of expanding college access.
It’s an important tension to consider for anyone who’s thinking about the next generation of enrollment leaders and how to prepare them for the role at a time when many tools for enrolling underrepresented students are no longer on the table (e.g., race-conscious admissions, scholarships for minority students, an online dashboard that helped many colleges assess high-achieving students attending low-income high schools).
Kasey Urquidez, a first-generation college student who graduated from the University of Arizona, spent 30 years working for her alma mater, most recently as vice president for enrollment management, from 2014 to 2025. “No matter how dedicated I was to access and student success, which was the core of why I did the work, it was still a business,” she says. “You have to know the ins and outs of that business and execute flawlessly to bring in the class and support the institution by meeting those revenue goals and the numerical goals, which, because institutional leaders come and go, can change constantly.”
Yet Urquidez has worked with early-career admissions officers who didn’t like thinking about their work in that way. She recalls an especially dedicated colleague who was disheartened by how state legislation and institutional decisions shaped admissions outcomes; though the university was enrolling racially and socioeconomically diverse classes, the admissions officer felt frustrated that they weren’t more so. So, she left.
“I’ve heard stories like that over and over again,” Urquidez says, “and it does worry me about the profession and its future. We want the leaders who stay in the field to have that business mindset, but we also need those leaders to have heart, a dedication to students, to college access and student success.”
Managing the inherent tensions of the job is a never-ending challenge, as Pérez writes in The Hottest Seat on Campus. Having grown up poor in the South Bronx, he took to admissions work, in part, because he wanted to help disadvantaged students see a path to college. But after becoming an admissions dean, he had to prioritize many other goals, just as he had to accept that the job requires “an entirely different set of skills and ways of operating” than his position as a student-facing admissions officer had.
In one passage, Pérez recalls how he and his admissions staff at Pitzer College had to make “painful” tradeoffs when deciding who to admit so that the institution would meet its net revenue goals. After a successful cycle in which the college’s admission rate hit a record-low 13 percent, the then-president told Pérez that, next year, the goal would be to lower it to 12 percent while also decreasing the discount rate and increasing revenue.
“Why is that the goal?” the exhausted and frustrated admissions dean asked his boss. “When is it going to be enough?”
The unspoken answer to the second question: Never.
A selective college’s hunger is never sated, which can cause disillusionment among those responsible for feeding it.
In the book, Pérez admits that he considered quitting after that tense conversation at Pitzer and on a few other occasions, both there and at Trinity College, in Connecticut, where he was vice president for enrollment and student success from 2015 to 2020. But the weight of institutional ambitions isn’t the only thing that can grind down an enrollment leader.
The work — as described by Pérez and other enrollment veterans he quotes in The Hottest Seat on Campus — is hyper-collaborative. It requires constant relationship-building, careful communication with campus stakeholders, and plenty of politicking.
But the job can also be lonely. Administrators, faculty members, trustees, and alumni often corner enrollment leaders to complain about outcomes they don’t like. And just because a college hits or exceeds its enrollment and revenue goals in a given cycle doesn’t mean everyone on the campus will be happy. Faculty might complain about larger seminar classes, for instance. A drop in the number of Jewish students one year when Pérez was at Trinity caused an outrage.
Though a newly hired leader is often expected to innovate, Pérez describes how harshly some campus constituents reacted when he tried to create change or suggest new ideas.
We want the leaders who stay in the field to have that business mindset, but we also need those leaders to have heart, a dedication to students, to college access and student success.
Also, people are watching you. Pérez recalls that during one meeting at Pitzer, a professor looked down at his shoes and said “Must be nice to walk around with designer shoes.” At Trinity, a faculty member who saw Pérez getting into his new Volvo made a point of commenting on the administrator’s salary.
But Pérez’s book is not a gripe-a-thon. It offers suggestions for how, in difficult moments, admissions and enrollment officials can thrive or, at least, endure, amid strife. For one thing, Pérez argues that such leaders must become effective storytellers. “Impactful deans also become champions for a cause. … This requires strategic storytelling.”
Data drive many aspects of the job, but numbers that remain buried in spreadsheets tend to have only so much power. Weaving data into a story, though, often helps enrollment leaders make the case for change. At Pitzer and Trinity, Pérez tried to create a sense of urgency around fund raising for financial aid. On several occasions, he presented trustees with slides showing the academic profiles and demographic characteristics of all the applicants that the college had rejected. He also described some of those applicants’ personal stories and stirring achievements.
When trustees asked why such strong applicants had been denied, Pérez had an answer: “I didn’t have enough financial aid,” he recalls saying. “If I had had a stronger budget, these are the kinds of students we could have on our campus.” And then he would ask them to help raise money for financial aid — and ensure it would be a top priority for the institution.
Despite feeling defeated on many occasions, Pérez never quit an enrollment job out of exhaustion or frustration (he left Trinity in 2020 after accepting an offer to lead NACAC). Over the years, he reached the conclusion that success in the field isn’t only a matter of how well leaders manage the people and projects under their supervision; it also comes down to how well they learn to manage themselves, especially when under fire.
Once, before arriving at what he knew would be a tough meeting with dozens of athletic coaches at Trinity, Pérez ducked into a bathroom, closed his eyes, and did some deep breathing. It helped him stay calm when, one by one, coaches expressed frustration with admissions policies and practices he was enacting; some raised their voices. Though Pérez writes that he listened carefully to their concerns, he tried to remain detached from the fray by imagining himself floating above the room.
That helped him see that all the grousing “was not about me,” he writes. “It was about the role I played at the institution.”
Why do people stay in such demanding jobs, year after year, decade after decade? “One obvious answer would be that we’re all masochists,” says Einstein, the head of enrollment at TCU.
Joking aside, the work tends to appeal to those who like multitasking and a full plate of heavy responsibilities — and who thrive under a spotlight. Also, the job can be lucrative, especially by higher education’s standards. As enrollment leaders’ portfolios have grown in recent years, their salaries have increased. WittKieffer’s recent survey found that more than half (53 percent) make between $150,000 and $250,000 a year; it also indicated an increase in those earning $300,000 or more (27 percent now do so).
But some enrollment officials say intangible rewards sustain them. Einstein enjoys the public-facing role he plays at his institution and the opportunity to enact changes that help students. Recently, he helped develop an initiative called TCU for Texans, a financial-aid program for in-state students from families with an adjusted gross income of $70,000 or less. “TCU is an expensive school,” he says, “but over the next 10 years, we’re going to see an influx of students who can attend for little or no cost, who never would’ve considered TCU in the past. That’s super-exciting for me.”
Campus divisions often work independently of one another; enrollment leaders often bring them together at the same table to tackle crucial institutional goals. Jonathan Burdick, a former vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University who previously led admissions operations at two other prominent private institutions, likens the role to a bishop engaging with a parish.
“You’ve got this constant need to hew as close as you can to the mission,” Burdick says. “On the other hand, you also have to be sure you’re providing services. You’re always addressing these crazy, unexpected challenges from all directions. It’s a very human process, but you’ve got to bring in business savvy to it, and then almost pretend that you’re not doing that. It’s just exciting work, very creative work, and it’s constantly changing.”
Change can be energizing, but also demoralizing. Recently, the sustained attack on campus diversity initiatives, plus the federal government’s apparent hunt for evidence that colleges are unlawfully considering applicants’ race, have alarmed enrollment and admissions leaders, whose work has long been based on the notion that colleges must build and nurture diverse communities.
Still, Burdick believes many enrollment leaders remain resolved to continue pursuing such goals within the bounds of the law. “There’s more appetite for risk at many colleges than you would think, even if the admissions leader is now in daily consultations with the general counsel,” he says. “Admissions staffs, to the extent that they’re frustrated with the constraints on their work, are also energized by being on the front lines of this particular conflict.”
Pérez agrees. As NACAC’s chief executive, he regularly visits campuses and attends conferences where he talks with admissions officers. “I would say 100 percent of the people who are passionate about this work have recently asked themselves ‘Am I in the right place? Is my institution going to support me?’” Pérez says. “But what’s amazing is that the majority of people I’ve spoken with have lifted themselves out of that fog of hopelessness and despair, and said ‘This is our battle to fight.’ Many people in this profession are doing this job because they want more young people to have the same educational opportunity that they got.”
After a tumultuous year for higher education, presidents, provosts, and trustees have much to fret about besides the state of the admissions profession. But they should know that the people in charge of delivering their freshmen class — enrollment leaders, admissions deans and directors, campus-tour coordinators, and many others — have experienced an especially draining stretch.
Institutional leaders also might want to consider to what extent they have created an ecosystem that supports enrollment success, however it’s defined. Crutchfield, at WittKieffer, says candidates for top-level jobs want to know whether there’s shared ownership of enrollment goals on a campus: “Enrollment leaders are resilient, but they’re also leery of expectations or goals that may not be realistic in this environment. They’re looking for signals that there will be a partnership, goals based on data, and a willingness to innovate. You can’t necessarily expect to achieve amazing results in enrollment without adjusting other things that can lead to success, such as academic programming or marketing.”
One important question: Are colleges doing enough to prepare leaders to thrive in the hot seat? WittKieffer has found that while many institutions provide professional development to enrollment officials, there’s a big gap between what many institutions provide and what such leaders want. (The firm recently found that 54 percent of such leaders want executive coaching, for instance, but just 20 percent of colleges offer it.)
Admissions staffs, to the extent that they’re frustrated with the constraints on their work, are also energized by being on the front lines of this particular conflict.
In 2025, the job is only getting more complex: Enrollment officials must master data analytics and predictive modeling, as well as budgeting and financial planning. They also must learn to use an array of technological tools while honing their advocacy skills and communicating effectively with a large roster of interested parties, often including state legislators.
“In the past, you were kind of thrown into the job, and it was you-float-or-you-don’t,” Crutchfield says. “Now, we’re seeing more purposeful onboarding and a move toward doing more to support people in those roles. It’s a lot more cost-efficient if you can hire an enrollment vice president, retain them, and help them thrive and be successful, as opposed to this kind of revolving door where a college is doing a search for a new vice president every couple of years.”
But even a well-prepared enrollment official almost certainly won’t stick around long if they’re not on the same page with, or feel supported by, their college’s president. “I hear about a lot of presidents who just sort of throw their enrollment dean to the wolves at a trustees meeting,” says Pérez, at NACAC. “I also hear about presidents who won’t celebrate the admissions staff’s work if the college doesn’t hit its target for the freshman class.”
Pérez calls himself lucky. The presidents he worked for, he says, often asked him how they could help — and then followed through. “The president has to become the biggest cheerleader for enrollment,” he says. And when a new enrollment leader is hired, he believes, they must remind everyone of one thing.
This person is not our savior.
