Case Study: University of Mary Washington achieves record-breaking freshman enrollment growth with Ruffalo Noel Levitz

University of Mary Washington - Customer Case Study

The University of Mary Washington, a public liberal arts university in Virginia, faced declining enrollment in a highly competitive East Coast market and needed to make better use of data while continuing to attract high‑achieving students. To help, the university partnered with Ruffalo Noel Levitz and adopted a data-driven enrollment approach that included financial-aid leveraging, new search strategies, a new CRM, and later a predictive enrollment model.

Ruffalo Noel Levitz supported infrastructure and process changes in year one and shifted resources into targeted recruitment, marketing, IT, and staffing in year two, adding a predictive model that scored each applicant’s likelihood to enroll. The results: a 17.8% increase in freshman enrollment (from 850 to 1,001 — the largest freshman class in UMW’s 107‑year history), a doubling of freshman honors students, maintained average SAT/GPA, roughly 24% ethnic diversity in the class, and sizable in‑state, out‑of‑state, and international gains; UMW is now working to sustain this growth with a strategic enrollment plan.

University of Mary Washington