Build Better Systems for Your Graduate Program's Intake
A practical, open resource for designing, managing, and improving the systems that support your graduate program intake and operations.
Graduate program intake is more than recruiting the next class. It is an ongoing system of decisions, processes, people, information, and experiences that must work together—and improve over time.
The Graduate Program Intake Playbook provides practical frameworks, tools, and approaches that program leaders can adapt to their own programs.
Graduate Program Intake Is More Than Recruitment
Graduate programs often manage recruitment, admissions, enrollment, learner support, and program improvement as separate activities. When these activities are disconnected, programs can find themselves repeatedly solving the same problems, relying on institutional memory, and scrambling from one intake to the next.
The goal is to move beyond transactional enrollment toward design-led partnerships with the people who shape and experience the program—including prospective learners, current learners, alumni, and employers.
Intake management is different. It connects the systems, people, information, and decisions that support an ongoing cycle of program intake—and creates opportunities to learn from each cycle and improve the next.
DESIGN
↓
MANAGE
↓
REVIEW
↓
IMPROVE
Three Systems. One Graduate Program Intake.
Your graduate program's intake is supported by three interconnected systems: Lead Collection, Learner Conversion, and Fan Creation. Together, they provide a framework for understanding, managing, and improving the relationships and processes that shape the learner's journey.
The systems are not a linear funnel. They work together, and what you learn in one system can improve the others.
01 - LEAD COLLECTION
Research & Sourcing
Understand prospective learners
02 - LEARNER CONVERSION
Admissions & Planning
Create informed relationships
03 - FAN CREATION
Student Success & Workforce Impact
Create lasting value
FEATURED PLAY
Play 0.1 — The Graduate Program Purpose Statement
A practical approach to clarifying what your graduate program is designed to accomplish.
Explore the Play ⇒
The Playbook Is a Perpetual Draft
The Playbook is not a static manual or a finished set of best practices. It is a working system that evolves as programs learn from their experiences.
Every intake provides an opportunity to test what works, identify what needs to change, and improve the systems that support the next intake.
Every intake teaches you something.
The goal isn't to create a perfect Playbook. It's to create a better one.
Explore the Playbook
The Playbook is organized into systems, sections, and individual Plays that you can explore, adapt, and apply to your own graduate program.
Start wherever your program needs the most attention—or explore the Playbook from beginning to end.
Stay Connected to the Work
The Playbook is an ongoing conversation about how graduate programs can build, manage, and improve their intake systems.
NEWSLETTER
Get the next Play
New Plays, ideas, and practical resources delivered through LinkedIn.
PODCAST
Listen to the Playbook
Conversations about the ideas and practices behind the Plays.
OFFICE HOURS
Join the Conversation
Monthly conversations about the Playbook, questions, and real-world experience.
3rd Tuesday - 11:00 AM
COMMUNITY
Join the Community
A LinkedIn community for graduate program leaders interested in improving intake management.
Coming Soon