Dr. D. Kanthi Sudha, an esteemed Senior Member of IEEE and Lifetime Member of ISTE and IETE holds a PhD in RF Antennas and an M.Tech. in Microwave Engineering. With over 15 publications in prestigious national and international journals, she brings a wealth of knowledge to her role as an Assistant Professor in the Electronics and Communication Engineering Department and Coordinator of Admissions at VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology.

Dr. Kanthi Sudha’s extensive professional journey includes pivotal roles at RCI, DRDO and Astra Microwave Products Limited, where she contributed significantly to projects like the "Radio Proximity Fuse" and the development of ADS vendor libraries. Recognized for her exemplary contributions, Dr. Kanthi Sudha has been honored with awards like India’s Top Admission Counsellors Summit Awards and certificates for exceptional contributions as primary evaluator in initiatives like 'Toycathon 2021'. Currently, she serves as the Institute Nodal Officer for various scholarship schemes, demonstrating her commitment to educational excellence and social empowerment.

VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology

Can you provide an overview of your experience in admissions within the field of higher education, particularly in engineering and technology institutes?

Disruptive technologies and the advent of ICT, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Data Science, Cyber Security and the Internet of Things have challenged the higher education sector beyond its potential. Being pertinent and developing a plan of action to move seamlessly through these reforms has helped us deal with the challenges head-on. Dealing with parent’s and student’s apprehensions about the core courses, the herd mentality about CSE courses, the misguided placement statistics projected by a few tier two institutes, working in tandem with the industry to keep our students abreast of the latest technologies for good job offers have been a few of the major challenges that we had to deal with in the admissions process. When most Engineering colleges raced towards the closure of their core branches based on their vacancies, VNR VJIET braved and worked towards retaining all its core branches, filling them up successfully with 100% admissions. We have been relentlessly working to smooth the admission process for our potential aspirants, as well as providing expert guidance from our end to help prospective students make informed choices.

What strategies have you employed in previous roles to increase the number of qualified applicants and improve the overall admissions process?

VNRVJIET is a trusted institute, widely known for its transparent and fair admissions processes. The organic progression of attracting meritorious candidates year by year speaks volumes about how quality is given the utmost importance in our institute. VNR VJIET is the numero uno institute to bring an innovative series of online panel discussions on “Engineering Education – Match your passion, Charting the Right Career Choice” for each and every branch of Engineering. The introduction of department wise videos through our YouTube channel has been a great source of information for parents and prospective students to gain insights about a specific branch of Engineering. For the last three years, we have introduced the concept of branch counsellors, where faculty from the respective departments handle the inquiries based on the student’s interest as per a designated schedule throughout the week. This enables the students to inquire about a specific branch and explore its potential by talking with the concerned branch counsellor. Counselling and dealing with personal inquiries on a one-to-one basis have always been appreciated, both by potential aspirants and parents.

How do you stay informed about industry trends and changes in admissions policies and procedures?

VNRVJIET is an autonomous institute where the flexibility of its curriculum is explored to the maximum potential. We do have members from premier industries and institutes as part of our Board of Studies. This enables us to identify the new norms and changes well in advance giving us ample time to plan our course of action in terms of admission procedures. Being relevant and updated helps a lot in tuning to industry requirements. An example of this can be given in terms of the faculty expertise that our institute has built up, even before the introduction of CSE allied courses in AI and ML, Data Science, Cyber Security and IOT by AICTE. This has helped us in a smooth transition with emerging technologies compared with the other institutes. Our faculty are also well equipped with the skill set required to run these emerging courses in the institute. This has rendered us an advantage both in the form of internships and placements of our students from these new courses.

Describe your experience with data analysis and its role in shaping admissions decisions and strategies.

The relevance of data and its significance have always been a point of discussion in our admissions team. We do a lot of data analysis, right from the enquiry stage to admission. With the intervention of digital marketing platforms, we have observed that these platforms can provide us with data on students enquiring about our institute from different parts of the country. Being an established institute with more than 28 years of experience, we are now aspiring towards acquiring university status. In that context, we are looking forward to having students from diverse backgrounds join our institute. Data analysis has become pivotal for us in our admissions decisions as it provides better insights into our potential aspirant’s databases.

How do you ensure that the admissions process is fair, transparent, and compliant with regulatory standards and institutional policies?

VNR VJIET proudly claims to have a transparent admission process as per the guidelines issued by the regulatory standards. Our institute is part of the Vignana Jyothi Society, an educational trust whose primary mandate is to offer good education to all. We do not resort to any unfair means or encourage any mediation from third parties in our admissions process. VNR VJIET is immensely respected for its fair admission process and has been a trusted institute by society since its inception.

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Can you discuss your approach to managing relationships with prospective students, parents, guidance counselors, and other stakeholders involved in the admissions process?

Guiding prospective students and parents requires a lot of patience and perseverance. Our branch counsellors are trained to handle all types of enquiries coming from varied backgrounds. As coordinator of admissions, I start my admission related activities with a strategic action plan for the upcoming admissions year. The guidance counsellors give their feedback based on their previous years’ experience and we discuss the pros and cons of our experiences. This gives a positive attitude among my team members that their inputs are being valued and it establishes mutual trust and respect for each other. We do data analysis to discuss our contribution, appreciate the counsellors who have reached their goals and reflect on where we have gone wrong. This also enables the team to be on the same page concerning key indicators of performance, thereby driving them to improve it further. Being on the leadership team has enabled me to access my hierarchal group, comprising the Principal, Director, Deans and Heads of departments, who are open to honest discussions about our team’s feedback pertaining to admissions. We also collect feedback from the admitted students and parents on their overall experience with the admissions process, which gives us a lot of hindsight.

What methods do you use to assess the effectiveness of recruitment and marketing initiatives in attracting prospective students?

Enquiries from parents and students are captured with the help of our online tools, like enquiry forms, phone calls and personal enquiries. Then data analysis is done to identify potential leads that can be nurtured for conversion. The marketing initiatives that have been taken up are done after a lot of brainstorming sessions with both the hierarchal leaders’ and management members’ inputs. Digital marketing is one of the most efficient tools for getting our content and intent to reach a larger audience. We also have an official Youtube channel where all the videos about our institute are available for prospective students. We are quite active on social media too, which is fetching us a good amount of traffic from prospective students, which is maintained by our social media student club. VNR VJIET is leveraging the strength of the student community to reach even remote locations, which is one of the reasons we find students reaching out to us for admissions through the word of our alumni.

How do you handle challenges or conflicts that may arise during the admissions process, such as discrepancies in application materials or complaints from applicants?

We have introduced a foolproof process for online applications that ensures that the discrepancies encountered are at a minimal level. We strictly avoid third-party mediators or consultants at the application level, which enables the students and parents to rely on the admission process confidently. We have an admissions team that works relentlessly to answer the emails on the go and attend to phone calls in person beyond the working hours during the admissions period. Apart from this, any complaints raised by the students or parents are immediately addressed within 24 hours. We maintain a record of all the admission applications with transparency among our admissions team, which enables us to resolve the issues in the quickest way possible by working synchronously.

In what ways do you prioritize diversity and inclusion in the admissions process, and how do you ensure equitable opportunities for all applicants?

We are keen on having a vibrant culture on the campus and that’s one of the driving factors in attracting aspirants from varied state and country backgrounds. Hyderabad city is known for its distinctive culture, which has an amalgamation of populations from different states that trickles into our institute too, with many of the students opting for admission to VNR VJIET from diverse backgrounds and languages. Our admissions team is well versed in three languages to handle the enquiries in an effective way. We also visit different states as part of promotional activities to attract aspiring students from other states. Last year, we participated in an expo in Guwahati, which gave us a lot of insights into the student’s perspective. We also have a supernumerary quota of 15% for foreign admissions, through which we are tapping students from other countries too. Recently, the admissions team visited Oman as part of the Study in India program where we could get some leads who were interested in joining VNR VJIET. We conduct regular awareness sessions both online and offline about the admissions process, criteria and documentation requirements to empower the aspirants with all the admissions related information pertaining to VNR VJIET.

Please share an example of a successful admissions campaign or initiative that you spearheaded in a previous role and the outcomes achieved.

With my experience dealing with parents and student enquiries, I have observed that many of them relied on varied sources for information about engineering courses that were not professional. It made me ponder providing a platform for accessing information in the right way. In the year 2020, I started an initiative of online panel discussions “Engineering Education-Match Your passion- Charting the Right Career Choice.” The panel members were comprised of Admissions Coordinators, Head of the Departments, Senior faculty members, placement coordinators, industry experts and alumni. This was conducted across all the branches of Engineering and the discussion led to a very interactive session with both the parents and students, leading to informed choices.

VNR EXPRO was an initiative of VNR VJIET, where we brought in school students to the campus to allow them to explore exciting projects related to their branch of interest. This has been a very successful initiative with visible outcomes within a short span of time. Recently, we conducted an open house offline session with all the Heads of the Departments on a single platform under the theme “Engineering Education” and we had close to 200 parents who attended the session. The parents gained a lot of insights through this session and it clearly changed their perception of the core branches of Engineering, enlightened them about the benefits of minor degree programs and gave them an opportunity to explore and visit the departments of their choice.