Newtown Square, PA April 23, 2001  – ABT, a leading provider of student- and administrative-information systems, today revealed details of a joint application development program for PocketRecruiter, a mobile prospect information solution designed by admissions professionals, for admissions professionals.  Participating with ABT in this venture are five institutions of higher education representing different geographic regions, computing environments, and academic missions.  The solution uses PocketPC hand-held computers and industry-standard interfaces to help college admissions offices collect data and process information about prospective new students from their highly mobile staff of professional recruiters.

“The competition for new students is heating up among institutions of higher education,” said Mike Smith, Director of Information Technology at Milligan College (Milligan, Tennessee).  “In addition to the obvious portability and interpersonal communications advantages of a hand-held computer system, the ABT PocketRecruiter solution will also help our recruiters show student applicants that traditional, four-year colleges do understand the importance of technology in today’s Web- and wireless-connected economy.  Small, more intimate campus learning communities can — and some do — enjoy the benefits of good technology.  They are not mutually exclusive of each other.  We are fortunate that we have partnered with ABT to provide us with the ability to take advantage of the latest technology in recruiting students.”

“Enrollment management and admissions are 100% customer service based,” notes Omar G. Correa,  Executive Director of Admissions & Financial Aid for Clarke College (Dubuque, IA).  “The quick access to information is a must, ‘knowledge is power.’  ABT and PocketRecruiter literally put this information at our finger tips.   Any opportunity to improve the services we provide to our customers, the students and their families, is going to help us meet our goals.  Technology continues to be the road to the future and ABT is allowing us to use this technology to increase our effectiveness.”

ABT PocketRecruiter Features and Functions

PocketRecruiter features a powerful query capability that allows recruiters to select organizations and prospects, based on record identifiers such as state, zip code, assigned recruiter, interest level, and academic interest.  Recruiters are able to drill down to review demographic and academic data such as address, academic interest, and SAT scores. In addition, recruiters can use the stylus or keyboard to work with records before, during and after meetings and events, updating important changes or recording prospect specific notes, textual or audio.  Delivering complete integration, recruiting staff can download all the essential data for recruiting events, make updates to records and upload those updates back to the administrative system.  System specifications and functional descriptions are provided in the accompanying Press Backgrounder and on the Web at www.pocketcampus.com.