Graduate Enrollment Management Competencies for Admissions Professionals in Dental Education.

Authors

Emily Rhineberger

Published in

Journal of dental education. Aug 05, 2026. Epub Aug 05, 2026.

Abstract

Admissions staff play an essential role in institutional success. Within higher education, admissions functions as part of graduate enrollment management (GEM), a network of non-academic student support roles that contribute to a positive student experience. While critical, GEM roles are loosely defined and lack a standardized list of competencies to guide professional success. Defining the roles and competencies of GEM staff would benefit both practitioners and the institutions that employ them. Dental education admissions staff are a key population in higher education that would benefit from exploring GEM competencies.
Using US dental school admissions staff as a bounded case study, this study explored essential GEM competencies as perceived by admissions professionals.
Admissions staff from US dental schools were invited to participate in the qualitative study. One hundred fifty-four admission contacts at 74 US dental schools were invited, and 10 interviews were conducted. Interviews were conducted using a researcher-designed protocol, transcribed through Parrot AI, and coded using indictive methods to determine themes in the data.
The findings indicate essential competencies are emotional intelligence, higher education knowledge, systems and technology, and communication. GEM professionals currently acquire these competencies on-the-job, through professional development, using personal support, and with the support of the dental association.
The findings represent an initial exploration of GEM competencies in dental education. The identification of competencies through this study offers insights into the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the student services support staff to use in hiring, job description review, and staff assessments. Admissions officers could similarly use the competencies identified to understand their own proficiencies in essential skills. The findings offer a proverbial yardstick against which admissions officers and dental schools can self-assess GEM competencies.

PMID:
42554586
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 05 Aug 2026.

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