New enrollment initiatives attempt to draw students to Rider
By Mary-Simone Collazo and Grace Bertrand
Rider’s Enrollment Management Office is rolling out a series of new initiatives to show the positives of the Rider experience to encourage potential students to make the university their new home, according to Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff for the Student Experience Mary-Alice Ozechoski.
These initiatives, which are aimed at making the recruitment experience personal and expanding regional reach, have become a major priority for Enrollment Management as it looks to handle the fallout of Rider’s financial obstacles in fall 2026.
“We need students to choose their own journey, right?” Ozechoski said. “Most high school students are applying to seven to 10 colleges. … We want to make sure that every visit is important and every visit feels special.”
Despite Rider’s nearly $9 million improvement in its debt, according to the fiscal 2025 audit report, news of the university’s struggling financial situation has spread to prospective students, making engagement for enrollment harder.
However, Ozechoski added that these challenges may not be Rider-specific and have become an issue for higher education nationwide, saying, “There are less students across the country going to college, and there are fewer of them. … That’s why that yield becomes so important.”
Due to its financial crisis, the university’s accreditation status has also been put on probation by its accrediting body, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
With enrollment numbers and Rider’s future accreditation status still up in the air, Ozechoski said she believed the combination of new enrollment initiatives, the current community and Rider’s vast history will all help the university beat the odds.
“There’s something really powerful about this community.” Ozechoski continued. “When you hear … faculty and staff that have been here for decades, that they’re married to someone who works here, their children went here, you can’t minimize that. … It’s a testament to the experiences that are provided in and out of the classroom. And that’s really, really powerful.”
The university is also increasing its connectivity between faculty and prospective students. Through its customer management system, SLATE, faculty and staff can now send personalized letters that highlight what makes the program they teach unique, and why students should choose Rider. This exchange is meant to create more meaningful and direct connections, Ozechoski said.
In addition, Rider is growing its recruitment. According to Ozechoski, the university completed approximately 700 high school visits last year across New Jersey. The intended next step is to see if recruiting efforts can be expanded to neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Delaware.
With 7,000 admitted students still getting admitted to Rider, Ozechoski said, specialized days such as Science Bronc for a Day, Business Bronc for a Day and Accepted Students Day have become more crucial than ever.
Accepted Students Day, formerly known as Admitted Students Day, was created with the purpose of showing potential future Broncs the culture of the campus and giving them the motivation to commit to the university once they see what it has to offer, Ozechoski said.
Rather than keeping students in a couple spaces and relaying information to them, Accepted Students Day has become personalized to a particular student’s interests, such as music, business, science or media.
The process is done by each family being paired up with a Rider tour guide based on their intended major, and that tour guide is to introduce the prospective student to various aspects of their major around campus.
