A.S.U.
Arizona State University

Accelerating University Admissions with Document Capture Technology


The economy has endured a lingering recession for several years and the forecast is for continued economic doldrums through 2002. But the picture remains bright at the nation’s institutions of higher learning. Applications to graduate schools have increased in record numbers. According to leading business magazines, professionals want to enhance their job skills or reposition their careers for new opportunities when the recovery arrives.

Paperwork at the nation’s institutes of higher learning has mushroomed since the bear market hit in March 2000. From college transcripts to letters of reference to the graduate school application itself, college admissions staff must process large quantities of documents and forms, arriving in a variety of sizes, colors and shapes.

To make the Arizona State University (ASU) graduate admissions process faster for applicants and more efficient for administrators to recruit applicants, the university implemented VirtualReScan (VRS), document image-perfecting technology from Kofax.

The Challenge

Each year, ASU enrolls nearly 50,000 students from throughout the U.S. and from more than 120 countries. With more than 18,000 applications pouring into ASU’s graduate admissions office along with supporting documents, the Graduate College’s admissions staff faces the tough task of managing thousands of pages of paperwork required to process applications for review by university faculty prior to matriculation.

More than half of graduate school applications, particularly for the engineering and technology schools, originate from countries such as India, Taiwan and China. Applications and supporting documents -- such as transcripts, reference letters, immigration paperwork and financial affidavits -- frequently pose unique challenges for admissions staff. Many applications include handwritten information or are missing key data to assist in tracking student applications. And a lot of the supporting material to help a student gain admission comes in a variety of dissimilar document and page formats.

The Solution

VRS was especially helpful processing myriad supporting documents because it is able to scan mixed document types without manual sorting. It automatically crops, straightens and adjusts exposure for each student application document without impairing scanner performance.

The application enables ASU to capture, archive and retrieve electronic forms, such as applications and transcripts, and make them available quickly and easily on the Web. Paper documents are simply scanned and converted to useable digital electronic forms resulting in faster processing time, easier access to data and reduced data entry.

ASU added VRS-equipped scanners primarily to increase the system’s scanning capacity and ability to produce readable data from documents that were difficult to scan. Prior to this method, ASU scanned only the admission form, but the bulk of the paper in each applicant’s file consisted of supporting documents such as transcripts, bank records, immigration documents, letters of recommendation and more.

The Bottom Line -- ROI

By employing VRS, the ASU graduate admissions staff has slashed the time required to capture handwritten data and other fields from the core admissions form from 10 minutes to less than one minute, compared to the previous manual keying process. ASU can now reply to applicants faster, certify student credentials within a day of receipt, minimize lost files and documents and recover the space it gained upon removing now-obsolete filing cabinets. ASU also will save money by reducing the need for data entry clerks and redistributing the saved time and labor to other necessary projects.